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![]() ©2001 Peter Zevenaar, a Paradox 10 tool to keep track of your MP3 files. Submitted by Peter Zevenaar, the Netherlands "Pete, do you know of a way to print the names of my MP3-files, preferably in alphabetical order?" This article is about how this simple question of a friend of mine led me to create a multi-functional Paradox 10 application called Music Archive v1.2. The customer My friend is a DJ who has about 4 gigs a week, from big dance parties to the usual wedding parties. He collects a lot of records, CDs and MP3s and puts all of his songs on his computer and on new CDs to be able to play them at gigs. His initial problem If he needs to find a certain song or artist he has to know on which CD the song is. Otherwise he has to search through all of his CDs, which can be quite annoying. For instance, when he’s doing a gig and he gets a song request while the current song he’s playing will last for only one more minute, it would be nice for him to be able to find the song within the same minute and play it right after the current song. So in short: he needs an alphabetical report of all of his songs which he can update whenever he wants to. He has no laptop and bringing his PC to a gig is not workable. His wishes When discussing the possible solutions for my friend’s initial problem he and I noticed that he has far more (important) wishes, most of which we both became aware of during our conversation. Eventually, this is, amongst others, what he really needs:
How Paradox met the challenge Almost all functions put into Music Archive are functions processed within Paradox itself. Paradox works easily with files, filenames, and strings. I could use those capabilities to pull the artist and song names out of the MP3's filenames into a Paradox table. This separate table makes it possible to add extra information related to the MP3 that cannot be stored within the MP3 or its filename. This makes the database very flexible. Further, as all of the descriptive MP3 info is permanently stored in the Paradox table, it can be accessed instantly. Using various indices on the table makes the different MP3s per alphabet very quick to access too. Clicking a letter will instantly show the relative MP3s, also when the table consists of more than 20,000 records. Queries in Paradox are quick. In this way I was able to make the word search option in the song name field. The report and graphical options in Paradox made it very easy to design the reports and CD sleeves reports. Using style sheets I only had to style a basic report once, after which I could use that style for all other reports. Also, playing MP3s from within Paradox with the user’s default MP3 player is an easy task. It doesn’t matter which MP3 player the user has installed. Paradox just plays the MP3 regardless. To make some of Music Archive’s specific functions work, I needed an ActiveX control that could read and write the additional tag info an MP3 can contain, like song year, song length, etc. After some searching on the internet I found one: the Alfafish EzyID3 3.0 beta 2. This ActiveX control, made by Erik Christiansson, was originally created to work with Visual Basic 6.0 and Microsoft Access but I found out it works in Paradox 10 too. With Paradox I was able to meet all of my friend’s needs. Again I have found the possibilities with Paradox to be inexhaustible. It’s great not having to say no. The results Since its short existence Music Archive has turned out to be a major time saving application for my friend. He can do all the things mentioned in ‘His wishes’. He doesn’t have to use three or more applications any more. He doesn’t have to do repetitive actions and he can do many new and useful things. He is very content with it, which in my turn makes me a happy developer :-). The future The future might be that my friend can take his laptop, equipped with a very large harddisk, to a gig. He can then locate, select and play the songs from his computer using Music Archive live on stage. Other additions are being developed. Discussion of this article |
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